Error installing Word 97 on XP

I recently purchased a new computer with XP professional. I've successfully migrated Office 97 to it, with only one problem related to Microsoft Word.

When I start Word, I get a popup that say on the banner bar, "Microsoft Visual Basic." The message in that pop-up is:

"Unexpected Error (32811):

If I hit OKAY, another visual basic pop-up appears with the message:

"Compile error in hidden module: Autoexec"

Hitting OKAY then allows work to work normally.

Then when I exit, if I try to close only the document by hitting the X in the corner, I get this message again:

"Unexpected Error (32811) "

Hitting OKAY closes the dialog, but doesn't close the document. If I then close the entire program it gives this message with "Microsoft Word" on the banner:

"Do you want to save the changes you made to msword8.dot "

Hitting anything will allow the program to close.

All of the above behavior is consistent, meaning that it always occurs when opening and closing Word. Excel, Access, and Powerpoint all seem to be working okay.




Here is what I've tried, unsuccessfully:

--Reinstall Word from installation CD

--Uninstall and then reinstall Word.

These did not change the behavior.


I cannot find much on Microsoft's knowledgebase other than error 32811 is a "missing element. "

I looked at other possible solutions here, such as deactivating Norton Antivirus, but that only seems to apply to Office 2000 or later version. I don't think I have Adobe acrobat plug-ins, but I'm not even sure how to verify that.

Any ideas?

Terry Quinn

 

Thanks for the try

Thanks for the idea, Pete. I deleted the Normal.dot, but it did not fix the problem.

Terry

 

Vbasic

I installed that, but it did not solve the problem.

 

more tries

I uninstalled, rebooted, reinstalled and put on SR-2 fix, rebooted, and the problem is still there.

 

The 2 messages are pointing to the same thing I believe.

I have a feeling that this may have something to do with the Autoexec. bat. Which XP does not even think about let alone use. My autoexec gets used because it was there when I installed XP Pro.

One advantage to upgrading existing rather than clean.

Isn't Word 97 a few years old ? I bet it would work fine in 98 ir 98 SE.

Could it be that to work properly it does need something in the Autoexec ?

Like maybe just something in the PATH line. I have a couple of older games that require their location to be in the Path line of the Autoexec. And I get the 2nd error message if it is not there.

BillyBob

 

Found the problem

I also posted the same question on

microsoft.public.word.application.errors

and someone proposed a solution that is step #4 of this attachment:

http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm

Someone earlier here proposed this, but I didn't look far enough, and the problem was with a couple of files that were in the Startup directory.

Thanks for everyone's help here.

Terry

 

Terry,
Thanks for the link to the answer. It is a bit long, but it sounds like the info I needed.